The only verifiable content to the phrase "al-Qaeda" is this: that it is the name given to the official conspiracy theory endorsed by the United States government to justify its imperialistic wars in the first decade (and counting) of the 21st century.
Through its repetition by government officials and by what passes for journalism in the present crisis of democracy, this phrase has become ubiquitous and its meaning, i.e., the official conspiracy theory, has achieved the status of "common knowledge."
But to be perfectly candid, talk about "al-Qaeda" is the semantic equivalent of talk about the devil: what is said has the form of an explanation, but the only real content is that bad things happen.
"Al-Qaeda" is just another hot-house tomato on display in the consumerist wasteland of the American political imagination. Yes, there's some color and sheen and a pulpy substance when dissected, but nothing really worth ingesting.
And yet, like the monolithic presence of the Soviet Union during the Cold War, we cannot seem to live without it. Americans cannot seem to discover themselves without reference to some villainous "other" (first it was the native peoples, then it was the British, then the Barbary pirates, and then the Africans we had enslaved and then...and then...and then...).
I have lately become much interested in Rabbi Michael Lerner's argument that Americans must (finally) learn to fashion a positive, hopeful image of themselves and of the world. He expresses this argument in theological language. It is time, he says, for Americans to give the image of the Right Hand of God (God as warrior and avenger of wrong) a rest, and to take the Divine (however conceived) by the "left hand." The God of peace and compassion and love for one's fellow human being.
Quixotic you say? Well, yes, perhaps...But no more Quixotic than prosecuting wars against the devil. And far less destructive.
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